Love Those Teenagers!
Love Those Teenagers!
By: Peggy Dewane-Pope
Topics:
Posted by peggybak Mon May 12, 2008 10:42:52 PDT
Viewed 42 times
0 responses 0 comments
Some people show horror when I tell them I teach junior high school. They just cannot imagine someone choosing to spend their day with a bunch of eighth graders. I have a friend, Craig Holland, who teaches at Stockdale High School whose son teaches junior high. Craig figures his son is going straight to heaven when he dies because he’s lived the alternative in the classroom every day. Kidding aside, I really do love my job and yearly I have about 80 really good reasons why that is so.
I’ll never forget the witty poetry students have written about friends and what it means to grow up. Reading their weekly essays gives me insight into how they are figuring out how the world works whether the essay is about oil prices, inflation, or about how their junior high years are playing out. We laugh during discussions about irony, onomatopoeias, and idioms. They are shocked and horrified to hear how the Nazis treated the Jews. They show such compassion when other students are suffering tragedies and exhibit intolerance when others are bullied.
I love the young teens in my classes—don’t get me wrong, sometimes they drive me cuckoo. Chances are when I call the parents of kids who push my limits I end up loving their parents because for the most part, they are wildly supportive of me and my efforts to get their children to perform.
Struggling students give me all they have sometimes even though reading is so difficult for them. Gifted children question the outrageous greed people exhibit in books. My students show such enthusiasm following standardized testing when they tell me, “I used process-of-elimination on the test and I think I did well!”
I have had so many riotous laughing sessions with my students and more than a few tears. Students have urged me on and written poetry about how much they have grown. They have seen me through more family deaths than anyone should experience showing me love, compassion, and many kindnesses. It is great to be with the adults of the future every school day. I have great hopes for them and they know it.
| Send to a Friend | Report a Violation |
Neighbors
|
Continued from our print edition:
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
| Neighborhood Blogs | ||||||||||||||||||||
|
New entries from Southwest bloggers.
What to join in?
Get your own blog for free!
Note that
you must have a user ID
to create a blog.
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
New Blog Comments
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
